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>> It's lunchtime at this cafe south of London but the food being served here you may have overlooked. I'm Reuters reporter Emily Wither at this pop-up cafe in Brighton. Everything on my plate was just going to be thrown in the garbage but instead, it's been turned into nearly 200 meals.

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The Real Junk Food Project is part of a growing anti-food waste movement that's sprung up in recent years. The U.N. estimates globally consumers and businesses are tossing away a third of food produced for consumption. That's a staggering 1.3 billion tons a year. That's everything from a banana falling off the back of a truck to a supermarket throwing out the fruit if its skin has brown spots.

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This project is turning donations into meals, served on a pay as you feel basis at cafes across the UK, and in parts of Europe and Australia.>> In the beginning, we used to wait until supermarkets closed their doors and then we'd go and take perfectly edible food out of their bins.

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Whereas now, they put it aside for us. We have relationships with the store managers.>> But campaigners say there's still work to do. According to a new report, the UK alone wastes 1.9 million tons of food and drink a year. They say nearly all of it is avoidable.

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Government funded research by the Charity Wrap found that just 18% of edible food was redistributed in 2015. Most of it was burnt or used to create energy. Just over 50% of food thrown away after farming comes from the home.>> As an example, I've got a lovely bit of fennel here, but this obviously wouldn't be sellable anymore because it has been starting to turn, it has been bruised slightly.

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Likewise with this cabbage, it's still perfectly edible but just needs a layer taken off of it, and a slightly obscure one, oil, that's because it has been squashed so that would not sit on shelf very happily. And all of this was going to be just thrown away?>> Yeah, absolutely.